


Breakfastus Interuptus

by gladsomemind



Series: Scenes From Lives Never Lived [2]
Category: Highlander: The Raven, Highlander: The Series, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Between s02e01 and S02e02, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 19:51:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15713943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gladsomemind/pseuds/gladsomemind
Summary: Rodney doesn't like not knowing what's going on.  Or all these strange people wandering around his base.Methos doesn't even remember all the names he's had.





	Breakfastus Interuptus

Rodney was going back to Earth with John and Elizabeth later that morning, but there was something he needed to do before they left. Something with the interloper currently sat eating breakfast seemingly without a care in the world. An interloper currently destined to remain on Atlantis without Rodney’s supervision.

“Doctor Benjamin Josiah Walker.” He looked up with an inquisitive quirk to his eyebrow.

“Doctor Meredith Rodney McKay.” Rodney looked around to check that there was no-one close enough and paying attention to hear the hated name. A name the new guy really shouldn’t know.

Rodney threw himself into the chair opposite and scowled into the mocking visage. “Just Rodney.” That was going to take precedence even over the rest. “ _Just_ Rodney.” It was giving up potential threat leverage but that was still better than Meredith getting about to the marines. “How do you even know my first name?”

“I know Lucy Beckett, she credited a Meredith Rodney McKay on one of her papers, figured there weren’t that many Rodney McKay astrophysicists so it seemed logical.” The man actually quirked his eyebrow again. Knowing Lucy Beckett would need to be followed up on. No-one knew the woman yet she had given Rodney his first collaboration credit when he was still an undergrad.

Walker shook his head and drew them both back to the point. “What can I do for you Doctor McKay?” Apparently he was going to keep his ill-gotten knowledge to himself for now.

“Doctor. Benjamin. Josiah. Walker.” Walker frowned in confusion.

“Haven’t we done this already Doctor _Rodney_ McKay?”

“Benjamin Josiah.” A hand wave and a shrug. “Benjamin Josiah, Ben, Benjy, Joe. Yet Radek called you Adam.” Realisation looked to dawn which was handy as Rodney wasn’t really sure how he would explain this in a way that wouldn’t make him sound like a stalking lunatic.

Walker looked down at his breakfast before returning to his focussed eye contact. “Yes, he does. Is there a question Doctor?”

Ok, so he would have to sound like a paranoid stalker. “How do you get Adam from Benjamin or Josiah! I checked with Carson and he didn’t know who ‘Adam’ was when I asked him. There were two new Doctors since the siege and neither was called Adam. So who the hell are you Adam?”

He put his cutlery down neatly on his plate, lining them up like a proper, polite, gentleman. “It’s not that hard to comprehend. I changed my name before I went to Med School. It was a second career.” The man didn’t even look like he was thirty and medicine was a second career! “New career, new name. I knew Radek in my old life so he knew me by my old name. Hence, Adam.” It was a simple explanation, given quickly, so it was either a well prepared and practiced lie or the truth. It still didn’t make a lot of sense.

“Why would you change your name to go to Medical School?” Rodney’s entire life was predicated on building name recognition, well it was before he got caught up with the US Government. Why would anyone want a clean slate? Unless there was something criminal in his past.

Walker laughed. “Oh the look on your face. I was simply changing fields. I had a certain, perfectly legal, reputation with a particular group of people and we mutually decided that it was preferable if I became someone else. Leave all that behind. Although, I am still known as Adam to that group. Which, by the way as I know you are interested, included Radek’s Aunt. Which is how I come to know Radek and why Radek knows me as Adam. Med School and MD are in Ben Walker so that’s who I am now.  Is that a problem?”

Well it was logical for a given value of logic. Although it was still surprising that his file hadn’t included the name change. There was a gap in the security check which could be dangerous with the Trust in play on Earth.

“What did you do before?” Someone had to ask the questions if the military were going to fall down on the job.

“Research for a private company in Paris. Translating dead languages. I eventually decided that I wanted to work with the living rather than the dead. Left; went to Med School; bummed around for a couple of years. Ended up working for MSF in a refugee camp with Caro Lamb.  Happened to be visiting her when all this kicked off. Volunteered to help out. That’s the long and short of it – believe it or not.

“Is there anything else I can help you with Doctor McKay? Aren’t you going back today?” Now the stranger with his secretive smile at the mention of his ‘second career’ was dismissing Rodney!

Or not. “What is your relationship to Zelenka?” There that was to the point.

“Acquaintance; friend of a friend of relative; a friend. What did Radek say when you asked him?” Asked as if he knew that Zelenka had sworn at him in Czech and finished with ‘none of your business!’

“I’m not asking Radek. I’m asking you.”

Walker looked confused. “My relationship with Radek is nobody’s business but Radek’s and mine, with a side of significant other? Are you the significant other that you have the right to the answer or are you just wanting to be?” That damned eyebrow again and all Rodney could do was splutter. “If it’s the former you should talk to Radek. If it’s the latter I have no prior claim to a genius who is capable of making his own informed decisions. So, again, you are talking to the wrong man.”

He stood and picked up his tray. “I will tell you that I met him on a business trip where we spent time with Radek’s Aunt whilst Radek was visiting. Radek offered to show me around Prague and as it had been a while since I’d been there,” that damned smile again. “I accepted.  We spent a few days looking around.”

Walker went back to the probing look. “Anything else?”

“You seduced him!” Rodney was offended on behalf of his second.

Walker just laughed, and then leaned in to whisper in Rodney’s ear. “Oh no Doctor McKay, I let Radek seduce me.”

Then he was gone. Leaving the Atlantis Head of Science in stunned silence.


End file.
